What is the line between forbidding and promising, intimidating
and potentially exciting? Deciding to acquire this 160 CD box
(plus one each DVD and CDROM) for the price of the equivalent
of 9 premium price CDs involves at least a moment's reflection
on where the line lies. Will I ever play all of this? Does it
matter if I don't?

I have played only the lightest speckle of tracks in the interests
of reporting first impressions. Even so I hope that this will
be of some value in dealing with these questions. I can at least
touch in part of the outline of what to expect.

First, there's no competition. The de luxe Philips Mozart
Edition complete box became generally unavailable ten or so
years ago though one Amazon hero even now offers the set for
£999. While I would not put it past Universal to issue a bargain
basement box based on their vanguard Edition there's no news
that they will. EMI might but there's no sign of it as yet and
you might have to wait for the next big centenary or half centenary
of the birth or death. Naxos will, I predict, ultimately issue
a complete Mozart but then again they might not. After all they
their predilection for online sound libraries seems deeply entrenched.
In any event you might have to wait a while.

The potential purchaser of this Brilliant Classics set is confronted
with Mozart's huge and variegated edifice of surviving music
and must decide whether the promise of discovery and of revealed
pleasure or of curiosity satisfied is enough to warrant the
outlay.

You might well reflect on whether a large - but not this large
- box of the Greatest Mozart or some such would fit the bill.
Brilliant have one already at something like £40 for 40 CDs
(93669 listed at £35.00) and so did EMI Classics in their very
strong 2007 box Mozart 50 (0946 3 87894 2 0) at something like
£43 for 50 CDs running the gamut from Tate, Barenboim, Oistrakh,
Heutling, Kagan, Krips, Sawallisch and Haitink (many older recordings
but very distinguished all the same). On the other hand the
tantalising possibility of missing out on something will always
be there when at the price of just £0.54 per disc you could
have 'had it all'.

Completists, students, academics and the cash-strapped libraries
they frequent alongside and Mozart fanatics, parents who are
of the Mozart=child brain food persuasion and those collectors
who are transfixed by huge boxed sets will muse … and at this
price many will buy.

Those who shelled out for the earlier version of Brilliant's
Mozart The Complete Works - A 250th commemorative edition
(1756-2005) 170cds (92540) will wonder about whether to do so
again. How many more times will they be confronted with yet
another complete Mozart in which the changes have been rung.
I doubt that this will be the last Mozart Edition issued though
by their nature they are unlikely to be numerous.

Then again there's the continuing onward march of research to
be borne in mind. How ‘complete’ is this set? Complete, practically
speaking, but is this every dance, every orchestral movement,
every song? I suspect that there will be discoveries to come
from Russian and Chinese vaults, from Christies' catalogues,
from magnates’ strong rooms and from chance encounters in university
archives. Already there are perhaps some minor omissions.

As it stands there's a lifetime (at least one) of listening
here to make friends old or new, to feed aversions, to slake
the thirst for knowledge of 'undiscovered countries' and for
those rigorous souls who will listen their way systematically
through every disc. Then again if you can transfer these discs
onto a Brennan or other storage device you could, once the transfer
has been made, press the 'random play' button and wonder at
the variety. Just don't forget to ensure that you have entered
the details for each disc as you make the transfer or check
that the set is fully entered on the current version of the
Brennan or other database. So many options.

Telling against the set is the lack of a big book or even several
books keyed to the CDs and tracks - think in terms of Graham
Johnson's book of the Schubert songs for Hyperion (review).
They will have to console themselves with CDROM and DVD which
form part of the 12+ inch long box. The CD-ROMs supply profuse
pdf context and texts (no translations though and ineffectual
linking to particular CDs and tracks) but you may resent having
to load this each time you are curious.

With sets like this one wonders how long before Brilliant will
follow the example of Hänssler and issue an IPod or other MP3
player of these recordings. Pristine might be the pennant for
another cherished route where Brilliant's Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven,
Vivaldi, Haydn and Rachmaninoff form a corpus for transfer onto
a hard drive on sale to those keen to have the complete heritages
on a single mass storage device.

As with all such collections there is, in potential, something
unmusical about such sets. They foster the pleasure in possession.
But that's a factor hardwired into all collecting. One works
on the assumption that mere ownership is not the only factor
in the mind of those who read reviews and consider buying.

Finding your way around the set is aided by the card sleeves
being colour keyed by genre.

CD 11 (symphonies 40 and 41) was the first disc I tried. Jaap
Ter Linden directs lithe and lean performances by a chamber
orchestra using period instruments. The 2002 sound matches the
style and while good could have benefited from a more fleshy
tone. It has grand impact but is not what you would call sumptuous.
Perhaps these matters only occur to those of us brought up on
the probably over-dressed yet irresistible luxury of Böhm and
the Berlin Phil (reviewreviewreview).

CD 19 came next. The mid-1990s and the Sir Henry Wood Hall witnessed
Derek Han’s recording of the piano concertos with the Philharmonia
and Paul Freeman. The sound here stands tall and confident.
Han is an adept player who is open to the emotionalism of Mozart
as in the deftly passionate final Allegro of Piano Concerto
No. 22 (reviewreview).

CD 26 gives us the works for horn and orchestra. The finale
of the Fourth Concerto is presented with affectionate and uncondescending
wit and intelligence by Herman Jeurissen with the Netherlands
Chamber Orchestra conducted by Roy Goodman. This splendidly
packed out was licensed from Olympia. Delightful.

Contrast CD 26 with the lightly filled CD 29 (54:54). The Sinfonia
Concertante is played by Gil Sharon (who also directs) and Yuri
Gandelsman (viola) with the Amati Chamber Orchestra. This is
a grandly bustling and by no means unromantic reading. Sharon
and Gandelsman are smooth toned rather than lavish. The final
Presto is a total pleasure – brisk yet joyfully poignant. (reviewreview)

Move then to CD 45 for the vocal Notturni – the Piu non si
trovano has the vocal trio underpinned by the resinous basset
horn. The finest vocal Mozart. How about the Menuetto from the
12 Duos for two horns K487? This is resolutely and jauntily
despatched by Martin van de Merwe and Jos Buurman.

CD 53 originated from Nimbus. It’s a 1995 coupling of the quintets
for clarinet and horn with the oboe quartet. Gerd Seifert –
who made a classic recording of the four horn concertos with
Karajan and the BPO for DG in the 1960s - is the horn soloist.
These chamber recordings have splendidly gripping warmth and
immediacy. K407 ends with the sort of nonchalant jolly nobility
that might one day tempt someone to render this as a Horn Concerto.

The String Quartets are shared between the Sonare Quartet and
the Franz Schubert of Vienna Quartet. I sampled the start of
K421 (CD 77) from the latter and was immediately drawn in to
the honey-soaked warmth of the playing and the teeming density
of invention. Very satisfying. (review)

What a change when we move to CD 93 and the keyboard works for
four hands. The Sonata K381 looks to the romantic era but the
presentation by Bart van Oort and Ursula Dütschler is shackled
to the eighteenth century by the flaky fortepiano – some may
like the sound – I don’t. The playing is skilful and touching
but the overall effect does not draw me back. (review)
(review)

Moving to the vocal music I tried the Two German Church songs
K343 on CD 102 (reviewreview
Sacred Choral). Instantly struck by the finely prepared and
judged singing of these modest unison pieces I was impressed
with the unanimity and the modestly self-contained spirit of
this music as prepared by Nicol Matt. That is presumably the
squeak of the organ tracker action rather than a bird. Who knows
– it is all very innocently agreeable.

CD 116 - the Freemason Music – all 52:40 of it - reminded me
of another grand cycle on CD – that of Bis’s Sibelius Edition
which in its final 13th volume will include the Finnish
composer’s music for the Masons. The Wiener Akademie are conducted
by Martin Haselbock with Christoph Prégardien (tenor) taking
the rather baritonal Zerfliesset heut’ K483. Fine singing
most grippingly recorded.

CD 124 is the sixth and last of the volumes of Mozart’s concert
arias (review).
This is a rather unrefined sounding analogue effort from 1970
– the oldest recording here, I think. However the singing in
Non curo l’affetto K74b from Sylvia Geszty is like molten
silver, wonderful attention to dynamics and no trace of shrillness.
Otmar Suitner – the DDR darling of Eterna and Berlin Classics
fame – conducts the Staatskapelle Dresden with smiling precision.
Makes we want to track down Suitner’s Mozart symphonies – we
may well have undervalued them. Treasure indeed. Make a note
to explore the other concert arias.

CD 130 – La Finta Semplice. This was recorded in the
Mozarteum Salzburg reminding me that I had seen the Mozarteum
in the recentish Unitel Classica Euroarts DVD A Bridge Between
Two Worlds celebrating the life of André Previn. Previn
was joined by Messrs Kuchl, Seifert and Bartolomey for two Mozart
Piano Quartets (K478 and K493) – elite playing by the way. Despite
the extensive recitative (illuminated by the wittily imaginative
harpsichord – tr. 13) this opera is worth spending time with.
This is especially the case in a really fine performance from
a stellar cast including Donath, Holl, Rolfe-Johnson, Berganza,
Moser and Lloyd with the Mozarteum conducted by Leopold Hager.
Going by the names of those engaged in the other operas – Mackerras
(Telarc) and Kuijken (Accent) are to the fore in the more famous
operas - these are at least very good versions and often amongst
the very best.

The performances and recordings always seem by experience or
repute either at least good and at best outstanding so I do
not see anything here that does Mozart a disservice. If you
don't like a work recorded here it could be because it doesn't,
as they used to say, ‘strike on your box’ rather than the performers
or engineers having failed in some way.

During the first 12 days of January 2011 BBC Radio 3 is clearing
the decks to broadcast every single note Mozart wrote. With
sets like the present one radio stations the world over can
celebrate every round number and five-divisible Mozart birthyear/deathyear
as often as they numbers keep coming. At this price it’s also
a rite or extravaganza any listener can indulge.

Mozart is one of the greats so if you are tempted by the low
price don't feel you have to hold back.

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